A scuba diver who suffered decompression sickness while on holiday abroad last August is on the road to recovery.

Anthony Allen, aged 68, from Shirley, Solihull, suffered the condition - known as the bends - while diving in Marsa Alam in Egypt.

Having undergone recompression treatment, he has started to walk and said his London specialist believed he was becoming stronger.

But the former factory manager has been forced to spend his savings to pay for the treatment he had to receive abroad after his insurance company refused to pay the #30,000 bill. Mr Allen said: "I went to see the decompression specialist doctor in London and he was very pleased.

"He said I had come on very well and said my balance has improved and my sensitivity on my foot has improved. I'm stronger in my legs which, to my mind, is very, very good." But his son Mark, aged 31, who lives in Swindon, said his father was still a long way from making a full recovery.

"I saw him at Christmas and my dad is still very frustrated," he said. "He can walk a bit but it is hard on him because he hasn't got a lot of flexibility. We've still got a long way to go and don't know what the overall outcome will be."

Experienced diver Mr Allen had performed a "textbook dive with a perfect ascent" but became ill because of dehydration.

His insurance company, Lloyds TSB, refused to pay for his recompression treatment, which cost #344 an hour, because it said Mr Allen went deeper than the 30-metre limit stipulated in its small print.

Mark, a marketing analyst, said his father had probably not known about the limit and had made three attempts to urge the insurance company to reconsider.

"He had to pay the money so he could leave the country following his emergency treatment," he said. "But everything he paid was saved for his retirement and he has not got much left now.

"Now we are concentrating on his health and trying to get him better. There is no happy ending to this one."

Mr Allen, who retired as manager of a die-casting plant in Cannock in 2002, was an advanced open water diver with a licence that allowed him to go far deeper than 30 metres.

His two sons put off telling him about the insurance company's refusal to pay out so that the added stress did not hinder his recovery.